'Illiterate' people making 'false' allegations against AG’s Dept: ASG Kodagoda

2017-08-12 07:20:38

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Answering allegations levelled against the Attorney General’s Department as to how it examined 8,600 pages data retrieved from Arjun Aloysius’ mobile phone within two days, Additional Solicitor General Yasantha Kodagoda PC said yesterday “some illiterate people” were making baseless allegations, because in the retrieval process, the experts had converted the data to a “PDF” file and using its search engine the relevant details could be found easily.

In a special statement to the PCoI, ASG Kodagoda explained the process adopted by the experts in retrieving the data from Mr. Aloysius' mobile phone.

He said when transferring the extracted data to a computer using a particular medium by experts, the data is then converted to a searchable and conventional PDF document which contained 8,600 pages.

He said that process of extracting, converting and downloading was done within eight hours.

The ASG said subsequently that PDF was searched by both the experts and the Counsel of the Attorney General’s Department for the purpose of identifying certain details.

“That is how 8,600 pages were scanned and details found within 48 hours. Not because I am a genius who could go through all those pages, obviously, illiterate people would think so, but literate people will know that it was done using the search engine of the PDF file”, ASG Kodagoda said.

He said he was of the view that it was the method they had used in gathering certain details which were submitted in 26 pages to the Commission when Minister Ravi Karunanayake was testifying

When Justice Prasanna Jayawardena wanted to clarify the fact that whether the PDF file could be altered or changed at some point during the extraction process, ASG Kodagoda said the PDF that was received by them was an uneditable document.

“Kodagoda can’t fabricate messages in Aloysius’ phone, and that has to be clarified, because some illiterate people are making false allegations, which only reflects the level of their literacy,” the ASG said.

When Justice Jayawardena said the Commission was not concerned about such outside comments, the ASG said, “No those comments matter because we are here to assist the commission only.”

ASG Kodagoda was of the view that it was about safeguarding his professional reputation from “illiterate comments”.

Senior Counsel Chanaka de Silva appearing for Arjun Mahendran said those submissions might or might not have been made elsewhere, hence, there was no necessity to be dealing with them at the commission.

The ASG however disagreeing with the counsel’s stance said he needed to be concerned about such comments because the Commission is the only forum in which he has to speak.

However, he also told the Commission that the method used in retrieving data from mobile phones would not be used for the laptops and computers because it was impossible to do so.

The ASG said there would be a cloned copy (copy of every data) stored in the hardware of such laptop devices after the extraction and therefore it would not allow to have a single PDF file of the material extracted from them.

He said they would have a mirror image of that cloned copy of the hardware for the investigations and they would do whatever was possible to retrieve the deleted data as well.

When questioned, the ASG said those extracted data would be available as a form of replication which was readable and he said the data could be copied to an external drive and given to the Counsel appearing for the individuals under investigation, on the assurance of protecting their privacy. (Shehan Chamika Silva)

Comments - 8

he you genius, why cant you then identify Gotas signature for 2 years.

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raj Saturday, 12 August 2017 15:21

Yes. Only so called "literate" people can read and extract information from 8600 "PDF" pages within 2 days.

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Peter Saturday, 12 August 2017 16:23

Your are a disgrace to the legal profession. More than 43 cases of corrupt officials of the previous regime has been left in the AG offices without legal action. Have all of your been on the take of the previous regime. Yet when it came to Ravi your actions were spontaneous. Who was behind these decisions. Shame on you and in other countries you and your team would be prosecuted for corruption Little wonder why the country is going to the dogs when you and your team have been on the take on legal matters of the previous regime,

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TMALLAWA Saturday, 12 August 2017 17:27

WHILST ACCEPTING THE INTEGRITY OF THE ASG, IT IS ALSO A MATTER OF CONCERN WHEN THE DATA IN QUESTION ARE CONVERTED, TRANSFERRED AND TRANSCRIBED SEVERAL TIMES, THE PROBABILITY OF CORRUPTION OF DATA AND LOSING PARTS OF IT CANNOT BE RULED OUT COMPLETELY. BY THE WAY, WHO ARE THESE EXPERTS WHO HAVE UNDERTAKEN THE TASK ?

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jayasekara Saturday, 12 August 2017 17:58

Yes new technology can be used to analysis but the issue is why this type of methods not used for detecting Rajapaksha activities

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Rohan Perera Saturday, 12 August 2017 18:20

Dear Editor, Mr. Kodagoda's statement clearly shows that it is he who is "illiterate," at least when it comes to converting word or xl files to PDF. It is obvious he does not know, and not advised properly, that the conversion only gives an approximate replication and not a 100 percent accurate reproduction. There are many good software which offer varying degrees of accuracy, but none will guarantee 100 percent.Only a computer illiterate would search the converted PDF file when he has access to the original data. There are many risks in converting formatted data into PDF (Portable Data Format).

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Ratna Siva Monday, 14 August 2017 09:02

ASG Kodagada is a very able, smart and genuine Counsel, the country should be proud to have. His integrity cannot be questioned.Politicians doing the wrong thing ought to deal with its consequences. I'm certain the AG's Department would soon make the move to pin all corrupt politicians of current and previous regimes!

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Gobba Monday, 14 August 2017 13:56

So smart and genuine that he is still looking at Gota's signature for 2 years to identify it !!!! Come on !!!

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